‘European Union is bleeding us dry’ - says Mid Ulster UUP councillor

Cookstown and Magherafelt Volunteer Centre Chairperson George Shiels with Kim Ashton Vice-Chairperson of the Mid-Ulster District Council.INMM3115-328

Published:15:32Monday 20 June 2016

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Ulster Unionist Councillor George Shiels has issued eve of poll advice to the electorate to vote out in this Thursday’s referendum on membership of the European Union.

Councillor Shiels, representing Magherafelt Town Electoral Area in Mid-Ulster said, “We’re told we should back our argument up with sound facts and not to indulge in scaremongering. Well I won’t be scaring the life out of you citing the arrival of some fictitious bogey man, for the so-called bogey man has been already:-

“Our small Northern Ireland fishing industry has gone across the seven seas;

“Our Agricultural industry has been run down and our farmers are reduced to Saturday morning link-box farming, prepared in the meantime to subsidise their income through second and third jobs, in the process taking away their quality social and family life and no doubt shortening that life potentially throughoverworking.

“Sector after sector has taken a killer blow under European rule and farmer after farmer’s business has gone to the wall.

“Now the ‘Jewel in the Crown’ the milk production industry has gone the same way and is facing a very uncertain future.

“We have constantly been told by those who profess to hold the answers, that the reason our farming community has suffered dramatic economic decline is because the UK signed up to membership of the Common Market, as it then was, as an industrial nation, not an Agricultural nation.

“So we’ll get the benefits then through a buoyant manufacturing sector? I’m afraid not, in percentage terms Northern Ireland’s manufacturing sector is pathetic.

“I believe that the European Union is bleeding the UK dry and this isn’t the first time. During and after World War Two our country came close to bankruptcy, fighting the war to save our European neighbours from Hitler had taken a heavy toll in manpower and resources. America allowed us to sink deeper and deeper into debt and after the war the cost of rebuilding Europe was enormous.

“We’ve only just finished paying off our debts to America and we’re still paying week after week after week. When does it all end? It could all end this Thursday 23 rd June when you can register your vote to leave the European Union and then we can make a start on rebuilding our health service in particular and the UK in general.

“Use your own gut instincts on this, based on the decline of the agricultural industry and the evidence of your farming neighbours and friends, the experts didn’t know the economic abyss beckoned in 2008, so your bet is as good as their’s, don’t you think?”